


Heart

by celeste9



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Drunkenness, Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 06:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1541138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate walks in to find Clint drunk on his couch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Mash-up of both the Hawkeye comics and the MCU, taking place after Avengers. For 'in vino veritas/drunk fic' on my Trope Bingo card.

Kate got out of the party at ten (it had kind of sucked) and, for lack of anything better to do, figured she’d drop in on Clint in Bed-Stuy. He’d been weird since the Battle of New York, weirder than usual, and considering he was a train wreck at the best of times, Kate liked to keep an eye on him when she could. Lucky met her at the door, wagging his tail so furiously his butt was wiggling back and forth. She scratched him behind the ears and said, “Where’s Clint, Lucky?”

Lucky whined a little and walked away, heading towards the living room. Or what passed for Clint’s living room, anyway. It was where the couch and the TV were. Kate followed after the dog.

Clint was sprawled on his stomach on the couch, his arm hanging off the side, white medical tape peeking out from beneath the sleeve of his t-shirt. His hair was sticking up every which way and Lucky was licking his face.

Clint pushed half-heartedly at Lucky. So he wasn’t dead, at least - there were enough empty and mostly empty bottles of assorted liquors surrounding the couch that Kate might have been a bit worried.

“Katie-Kate,” Clint slurred. Or that’s what it sounded like.

Kate put her hands to her hips. “What the hell.”

“Not so loud,” Clint said, wincing. He managed to push Lucky enough away so that he could flop more onto his back. He started to reach towards the nearest bottle and Kate moved forward so she could kick it away. “Aww, no.”

“You need to be cut off and, as the grown-up here, it’s left to me to do it.”

“You’re, like, twelve.”

“I think Natasha should be here. I’m going to text her.”

“No, Kate, no,” Clint protested. “She’ll kick my ass if she sees me.”

“And I won’t?”

Clint winced. “Point.” With what looked like a lot of effort, he moved up into what was nearly a seated position. He rubbed his hands over his face. “I already did the drunk thing with Natasha. Except she’s, like, a bottomless pit and could probably keep up with Thor, so she wasn’t actually very drunk. But she can’t know I-- I don’t want her to see me like this. Again.”

Kate felt, quite frankly, that Natasha would be unsurprised, and Natasha didn’t judge, so she didn’t really see the problem, but she could also sympathize with not wanting to let someone down. She squeezed down onto the couch in between Clint and Lucky. Lucky promptly sat his pizza-eating, fat ass on her lap, hanging over her so he could lay his head on Clint’s thigh. “Okay.”

The silence stretched and when Clint spoke next, it was so soft and unexpected that Kate almost missed it. “I fucked up, Katie.”

“I thought you saved the world.”

“That was after.”

“I think saving the world probably evens the scales pretty well.”

“I... People are dead because of me.”

Kate stayed quiet. She wasn’t really sure what she was supposed to say. What did you _say_ to that?

“Coulson’s dead because of me. I killed Coulson.”

“Who’s Coulson?”

Swallowing audibly, Clint said, “He was my... He was my something.”

Kate didn’t even know what that meant except that it sounded important. “I’m sorry.”

“Not you who should be sorry.” Clint made another move for a bottle and Kate elbowed him in the side. “Ow.”

“I’m guessing he wouldn’t be too thrilled to know you were honoring his memory by getting completely wasted on your horrible ratty couch.”

“He’d expect it, really.” Clint’s mouth was making this sort of crooked, half smile that wasn’t happy at all. “He’d be pissed, though, too. He-- Aww, Kate, I don’t know. He’d’ve liked you. Cellists. He liked cellists.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t know him.”

“’S my fault. Got in my head, and I-- I did things. Bad things. Sometimes I think he’s... he’s still there. Look in the mirror and make sure my eyes aren’t... Aren’t like that.”

_Loki,_ Kate thought, and wished she could have put an arrow in his face. Two arrows, one for her, and one for Clint.

“Don’t trust me anymore. S.H.I.E.L.D. Don’t think I trust me, either.” Clint made this small, horrible sound, like he was choking or drowning. “Heart,” he said. “I have heart. That’s what he said. Then he _took_ it. And he-- I…”

Kate felt miserably uncomfortable and utterly ill-equipped to deal with this. Why couldn’t Clint be a happy drunk? “I’m not really sure I’m the person you should be telling this to.”

“I don’t have anyone else,” Clint said, and the way he said that made Kate feel a little bit like something inside of her was dying.

“You have Natasha.”

“Nat... Nat understands too much. I can’t-- I just can’t. And the others, they won’t get it. Not like you. You get me, Hawkeye, don’t you?”

Kate made herself smile at him, something weak and frail. “Yeah, Hawkeye. I get you.” Too well, she thought. Sometimes she wished she knew him less, that she didn’t know that beneath the mask he was just this… humongous dork struggling his way through life, fucking up and trying again.

But he kept trying, and that was why Kate kept coming back.

Clint’s matching smile looked kind of broken, like he was shattered and trying to hold himself together with nerve and duct tape and too much alcohol. “I wanna make this work.”

“Make what work?”

“This. Be Hawkeye. Help people. Be an _Avenger._ Even this shitty apartment building. But I guess I don’t really know how.”

There was something distinctly not right about this, about the beseeching way Clint was looking at her, about how somehow she was supposed to be offering guidance to a man twice her age, or close to it. _This is your life, Kate Bishop._ “I think before you can do any of that, you’ve got to forgive yourself.”

“Yeah,” Clint murmured after a minute. “That’s what I thought you were gonna say.” He yawned hugely and Kate could smell the booze on his breath from here.

“Go to bed, Clint,” she said, dislodging Lucky and getting to her feet. “You’re a grown-ass man so I think you can manage it yourself.”

“Not gonna tuck me in?”

Kate gave him her best withering look. Considering how often she got to use it, it was pretty damn good.

She went through Clint’s apartment and found his stash of meds and first aid stuff, all picked over. She’d go to the store tomorrow and replenish it. God knew Clint would need it. She grabbed the mostly empty bottle of Ibuprofen and then filled a glass with water.

Clint had made it into bed, at least, though he was still in his jeans. (Actually, that was probably for the best - in his current state of inebriation, if he’d tried to change he might have forgotten what he was doing halfway through and Clint’s naked ass was definitely not on Kate’s list of things to see before she died. There were already enough things in their relationship that she’d prefer to scrub from her memory.) Lucky was stretched out on top of him, his tail thumping against the bed when Kate came near.

There was a little garbage can in the corner, mostly filled with balled-up food wrappers. Kate put it down next to the bed and then set down the glass and the bottle on the bedside table. “Water, Ibuprofen, puke bucket. Have some grease when you get up-- it’s not like you eat anything else, anyway. I’m out.”

“You’re all right, Katie-Kate,” Clint said, his arm slung over his eyes.

“I,” Kate said firmly, “am awesome.”

Lucky gave a sleepy woof of approval.

Kate went back into the hallway and then the living room, collecting all the alcohol bottles and either tossing them or returning them to the kitchen. She then put water and grounds in Clint’s crummy coffee maker. He’d appreciate it in the morning. Finally, she made sure all the lights in the apartment had been turned off and made her way to the door.

“You’re pretty all right, too, Clint Barton,” Kate said softly into the silence, and closed the door behind her.

Or he would be, she hoped.

**_End_ **


End file.
